Map Thread XX
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Marvelous map again @Bob Hope , though the County of Ravensburg is unfilled in the smaller of your inset maps. And at the very peak of the United Duchies power two. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if there hasn’t been a map of this region and the Gelders war in print in the last twenty years, if even before. I do hope to see some of your references sometimes, as you must have come across quite a few maps and texts that I would love to read. I suppose they might be in German though, which is a shame for me. Ahhh, and did they ever refer to the United Duchies with Mark in the title? It certainly was equal in size to the other ones, though it was a County in title. As the ruling house was La Marck, I suppose they managed to get equal billing in another fashion. By the way, any significance to the yellow circles in the Alsace area within the white? Just preparing for the ten imperial cities the French end up occupying later on? Then again, I suppose those were closer to the Rhine.
EDIT: Ahhh, and it seems portions of the Prince-Bishopric of Friesing are not shown. You have the large portionsjust south of Bavaria as well as inside Archdual Austria, but it seems they still had areas in Slovene areas up until Napoleon and all the meditizations.
EDIT: Ahhh, and it seems portions of the Prince-Bishopric of Friesing are not shown. You have the large portionsjust south of Bavaria as well as inside Archdual Austria, but it seems they still had areas in Slovene areas up until Napoleon and all the meditizations.
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Wasn’t the POD during the reign of Diocletian, well after the founding of Christianity?
Iberia did turn out kind of funny looking, but bordergore is the name of the game in the HRE.
Looks like I forgot to add a label in the key for military orders, which is the light gray color. In function this would be like the actual HRE but on a larger scale- maybe I could whip up a map of electors and imperial circles. The actual HRE didn't have republics, so I didn't want to stretch it that much. A councildom would be the closest thing, since it would be like a parliament without a king or queen.
I suppose the Emperor would either be in Rome or the capital city of his realm.
Weren't the Free Imperial Cities (especially the Hanseatic ones) republics?
Partially, though I was thinking more of the Italian ones. A fair few of those early on, before the Italians left de jure sovereignty of the HRE.
REGION PROFILE - CHINA
HISTORY
The history of China has lasted for millennia, starting when the Roman Empire was once still around. Dynasties had come and gone but despite that, China for centuries still prospered as the most wealthiest area of East Asia. This all changed in the dawn of the 19th century when European technology beat out China’s outdated technology, held back since China fell into isolationism. Many Chinese refer to this era as the “Century of Humiliation”, as a time when China’s military power decline, it’s wealth exploited and its slid into poverty, it’s government unstable and riddled with corruption.
The rotting Qing Dynasty fell to a republican revolution in 1912. The promises for a new stable and prosperous China were short-lived when warlord Yuan Shikai seized control of Peking and proclaimed himself as president, then emperor. The republicans revolted again and all of China fell into warlordism. In the 1930s though, the KMT (Nationalists) rose to power in Guangdong and expanded their authority throughout China, crushing various warlords. Despite communists attempting to seize power too, they were swept away and forced to flee into the mountainous countryside. China seemed to recover again, starting the “Nanjing Decade”, lasting from 1927 to 1937 when growth was on the rise and prosperity started to come back.
Dreams for a prosperous China under Chiang Kai Shek’s KMT were dashed when the Empire of Japan invaded China in 1937. The invasion lasted from 1937 to the end of WW2 in 1945 and was very destructive in China especially. The Japanese destroyed various cities, including the infamous “Rape of Nanking” in which China’s capital was razed to the ground by invading Japanese troops. Despite Japan occupying all of the Northeast and the coast, the Chinese refused to surrender and forced Japan into a stalemate. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, America went to war against Japan. Eventually, the Japanese were defeated in 1945 after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Despite China no longer occupied by the Japanese, the suffering had not yet ended.
The Nationalists were severely weakened by the Japanese Invasion, this provided a perfect opportunity for Mao’s communists to launch a takeover of China. With Soviet support, the communists took over the key industrial region of Manchuria and took over all of Northeast China. The disillusioned Nationalist troops were no match for the zealous communists and by 1949, all of mainland China was under their boot and the Nationalists fled to Taiwan. From 1950 to 1956, Mao attempted to modernize China to make them prosperous again and end the “Century of Humiliation”. This proved to be fatal, the replication of Stalin’s infamous Five Year Plan was met with the same results, mass starvation and terror.
After China was under the control of the communists, the Korean War had begun with the communist North invading the capitalist South. Thanks to UN intervention, the South Koreans were rescued and went back on the offensive. Mao’s paranoia showed when he feared the the UN was going to invade Manchuria so the communists decided to intervene in December 1950. The war eventually ground to a stalemate from 1951 to 1953, with neither side unable to defeat the other. Due to Mao’s refusal for peace and Stalin unwilling to intervene, the Americans had to take the fateful decisions to nuke multiple Chinese cities and bases in Manchuria to end the war. Stalin did not back Mao, which made him furious so he decided finally to end the Korean War. This also fostered a split between Mao and Stalin. Stalin could not tolerate an independent communist nation under his thumb, war was inevitable.
In 1956, a series of border skirmishes broke out between Chinese and Soviet forces in Mongolia and Manchuria. Both sides were unwilling to negotiate to prevent war, so had begun the Sino-Soviet War. The Soviets took the offensive, invading Inner Mongolia and Manchuria swiftly, defeating the poorly equipped Chinese forces. The Soviets also backed an Uighur uprising against the Chinese, which helped the Soviets conquer East Turkestan. The war eventually ended in a stalemate in 1957, with Soviet forces bogged down near Peking due to fierce Chinese resistance. Stalin decided to nuke Peking and multiple other Chinese cities and release a smallpox weapon on the Chinese. Mao survived the nuking of Peking but his reputation was lost so he was deposed by the politburo in 1958. The Soviets had won, as the spoils of war, they annexed East Turkestan as a new SSR, expanded Mongolia to take all of Inner Mongolia, and placed Manchuria under a brutal occupation zone.
The suffering the Chinese people faced after the Sino-Soviet War was detrimental. The communists seized all food from the peasants to support the war, causing a massive famine in the countryside. Most Chinese cities were smoldering ruins from Soviet nuclear attacks, there was no place to flee to, chaos and revolution behind to grip Mao’s China. In Sichuan, peasants mad with hunger proclaimed a new dynasty, the Tianshi Dynasty, centered around theocratic Taoism. Referred to as the “Yellow Banners”, they expanded their control across Sichuan Yunnan, Guizhou, Chongqing, and Guangxi with Soviet support. Tibetans revolted in the Kham region, and eventually, the Dalai Lama returned from exile in India back to Lhasa, where Tibetan rebels secured the city from the communists. Hui separatists also took advantage of the anarchy and carved out a state of their own.
As for the exiled nationalists, it was a golden opportunity to take back the mainland. Starting in 1958, nationalist troops secured Hainan and through Hong Long, took back Guangzhou from the communists, setting up a provisional capital there. Many former communist troops switched sides, being disillusioned with what communist had brought them. By 1960, the Nationalists controlled Guangdong, Fuijan, and Jiangxi. The People’s Republic of China turned on itself and became fairly isolated from the world. After Stalin’s death in 1958, Premier Malonkov attempted to reconcile with the Chinese but failed after he was deposed by the politburo. When the nationalist slowly drove the communists, the Chinese communists were no more than a Soviet satellite state. We can hope that eventually, the Century of Humiliation would eventually come to a close.
[Based off of the Twilight of the Red Tsar TL]
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I am considering that - I imagine that some countries would probably surrender early enough to be allowed to keep some autonomy, but I don't have anything in mind specifically.
Great Map! Though I always liked the idea that the Star Wars galaxy is an artificial galaxy that the precursor race dumped a bunch of primitive humans in
Allegedly one of the canceled companion books to the original trilogy had it so that Earth humans sent a manned probe into a black hole, and it spat the astronauts out near Coruscant, and that's where the first humans in the SW galaxy came from.
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